


the stars, your eyes

by asael



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-04
Updated: 2020-01-04
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:07:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22116127
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asael/pseuds/asael
Summary: Claude takes Dimitri out in his ship, the Wyvern, for some time among the stars.Written for Dimiclaude Week 2020, day 3, 'moon/stars'.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan
Comments: 30
Kudos: 99





	the stars, your eyes

**Author's Note:**

> I am a sucker for all AUs and I just finished watching s4 of The Expanse. That's my excuse.

It takes some convincing to get Dimitri into his ship, but the look on his face turns out to be utterly worth the hassle.

Claude pilots the Wyvern with an easy hand, an air of practice. He pilots like it’s second nature, and it is. On Almyra, piloting a small, swift craft like his Wyvern is what every young boy aspires too, and Claude was no different. He never fit in there, not really, just like he doesn’t really fit in at Garreg Mach Station, but his father’s work governing the planet meant that he’d had access to all the right training.

So when he came to the Academy, he came with his own ship. An older model, but customized by Claude’s own hand. It maneuvers more tightly than most, flies faster, turns on a dime. It’s so easy for Claude to fly, and so difficult for anyone else, that some of the other students whisper that it might have an AI installed - something that gives it a kind of life, something that recognizes only Claude as its master.

It’s not true, but Claude is happy to let them believe it.

“You really haven’t done this before?” Claude asks, glancing over at his passenger. The Wyvern is small, only really comfortable for one person at a time, but there’s a drop-down seat for emergencies, and that’s what he’s given Dimitri. It means that Dimitri is awfully close to him, buckled in tight, and when he leans forward to peer out the viewscreen he gets right up in Claude’s space.

Claude doesn’t mind. It was, in fact, part of the appeal of this trip.

“Never,” Dimitri says, his voice soft, awed. “I’ve ridden in plenty of ships, of course, and I’m trained to command a battle cruiser. But a craft like this?” He shakes his head. “Everything feels so much more.. real.”

Claude nods. He knows what Dimitri means. He’s ridden his share of transports and cruisers, large ships with thick hulls. Though they sometimes have windows - or viewscreens, really - showing the depths of space, it always feels like everything is at a distance. The larger ships are meant to feel that way, to feel secure and strong, to feel almost as if you’re standing on a station, or even a planet.

His ship is nothing like that. The Wyvern is a fighting craft, built strong but light, and when he’s in it he feels like he could practically reach out and catch a star in his hand. 

Some people can’t take it, can’t take feeling like the vast coldness of space is so close, like any error might breach the thin layers of metal and plastic that protect them. But Claude likes it. Claude has always liked it.

And Dimitri, it seems, likes it too.

“I figured Ingrid would have taken you out,” he says, and his hands move on the controls, putting the Wyvern into a higher speed, the gentle weight of low acceleration pressing them back againt their seats.

“No,” Dimitri says. “She believes it is too dangerous.”

“She is sworn to protect you,” Claude says, though it seems a shame. So long as the pilot is skilled and the ship is in good repair, it’s no more dangerous to fly like this than to climb aboard a cruiser.

Well. Perhaps a little more dangerous. There are certainly more failsafes aboard a cruiser. But Claude is confident in his skill - he won’t let the future leader of the Faerghus Interstellar Federation come to any harm.

He pilots the Wyvern away from the station, then around in a wide arc, so Garreg Mach is visible before them. It rests nestled in the side of a crater on a small moon orbiting Adrestia. Technically neutal ground, but Claude, with his head for strategy, thinks that if any conflict did break out - well, it’s much too close to the Adrestian Empire’s capitol planet to be truly neutral.

Luckily things seem stable for now. They can see part of the planet from where they are, looming up behind the moon, clouds scattered across its surface. They can see the station, the Academy, its metal spires and antennae piercing out into space, its docking ring spinning slowly above it all.

Claude flies downwards, towards the station, and next to him Dimitri takes a sudden breath. They’re close, almost too close, but Claude’s hands on the controls are certain and clever. They swing upwards, climbing the side of the crater. The station is large, the Wyvern is small, and Claude’s skill makes it possible to fly _through_ the spires, around the antennae. Claude likes to imagine he can see his classmates peering out of the windows, watching them, though in truth it’s impossible to see anything like that at this distance.

He flies in a wide spiral, not as tightly or quickly as he might do on his own. This is Dimitri’s first flight in such a small craft, and the quick sharp turns and sudden changes in height can be disturbing, even nauseating, if you’re not used to them.

Claude didn’t bring Dimitri out here to disturb him.

“Looks smaller from out here, doesn’t it?” he says as he swings them away from the station, keeping it in his viewscreen, pulling back so the planet and the darkness of space beyond it take up more of the view.

“It does,” Dimitri says, something like awe in his voice. “When we are inside, it feels large enough to be a world of its own. But out here - I suppose it seems fragile. Odd to think our lives are spent in a station that small.” There’s a wistfulness there, and Dimitri is leaning close, almost touching Claude’s shoulder. Claude wants to press their shoulders together, but doesn’t.

“There’s so much more out there,” Claude says. Dimitri knows that, of course, but sometimes when you spend your life confined to cruisers and stations and planets it’s easy to forget. His life has been all about preparing him to lead, not about - well. 

Everything else that’s out there.

Claude turns the Wyvern, spinning them slowly so the planet, the moon, the station all slip from view. So that before them is nothing but stars, spread out into infinity. Some explored, some not, some so far away that they may never be. Some that might have burned out long ago, some that Claude hopes to see in person someday.

So much possibility.

“It’s beautiful,” Dimitri says, and his voice is soft, wondering. Claude pulls his gaze away from the stars long enough to look at Dimitri, to see the expression on his face, and he feels warm inside.

This is what he wanted. To give Dimitri this.

And maybe to get him alone.

“Leicester is over there somewhere,” Claude says, pointing to one area of the stars. He knows his star maps well, and once he’s oriented himself it’s easy. “And Faerghus isn’t too far. Right there.”

Dimitri laughs, low and soft. “When I see it like that, they look close indeed.” Of course, they both know that Faerghus and the Leicester Planetary Alliance are hundreds of light years apart - and Almyra even further, Claude thinks with a twinge of sadness, of homesickness. But it’s true. When they’re here, out in the stars, it doesn’t seem so very far.

Claude smiles and takes his hands off the control, hitting the switch that will keep them stable, keep them on their trajectory until he decides to take them home. “I like coming out here,” he says. His eyes are on the stars, but every other part of him is focused on Dimitri. How close he is, how he is looking at Claude now. Claude can feel it. “Out here, it feels like everything is possible. It feels like all I need to do is reach out, and my dreams will be there, ready for me to take hold of them.”

“Aren’t they?” Dimitri says, and this is what Claude likes so much about him. Some of their fellow students distrust Claude, and none of them know what his dreams really are - even Dimitri doesn’t. Claude has never told him. But even so, Dimitri believes in him, believes that he can accomplish whatever he sets his mind to.

Dimitri has never doubted him, never truly distrusted him. It’s a gift to Claude, something that seems simple to Dimitri - sincere, honest, kind Dimitri - but is impossibly rare for someone like Claude to acheive.

“You know,” Claude says, his voice light now, a smile curving his lips, “you just might be right, your Princeliness.”

He turns then, and in the close quarters of the Wyvern Dimitri is near enough to touch. Near enough that all Claude has to do is reach out.

And so he does, sliding his fingers down Dimitri’s cheek, catching hold of his chin, leaning in close to press their lips together. Dimitri leans in too, deepens the kiss, tangles his fingers in Claude’s hair.

There, floating through the endless field of stars, Dimitri’s mouth on his, Claude truly does feel like anything is possible.


End file.
